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    A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts
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    A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts
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    A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts
    Audiobook10 hours

    A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts

    Written by Sebastian Faulks

    Narrated by Samuel West, Christian Rodska, Lucy Briers and

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In Second World War Poland, a prisoner closes his eyes and pictures a sunlit cricket ground. Across the yard of a Victorian poorhouse, a man is too ashamed to acknowledge the son he gave away. In a 19th-century French village, an old servant understands the meaning of the Bible story her master is reading. In the Catskills, 1971, a girl steps out of a Chevy with a song that will send shivers through her listeners' skulls. A few years from now, in Italy, a scientist discovers links between time and the human brain, and her lover's novel and his life. Throughout five masterpieces of fiction, exquisitely drawn and unforgettable characters risk their bodies, hearts and minds in pursuit of the manna of human connection.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateDec 11, 2012
    ISBN9781624061684
    Unavailable
    A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Parts
    Author

    Sebastian Faulks

    Sebastian Faulks is the author of ten novels. They include the UK number one bestseller A Week in December; Charlotte Gray, which was made into a film starring Cate Blanchett; and the classic Birdsong, which was recently adapted for television. In 2008, he was invited to write a James Bond novel, Devil May Care, to mark the centenary of Ian Fleming. He lives in London with his wife and their three children.

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    Reviews for A Possible Life

    3.5/5

    136 ratings22 reviews

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    • 3/5
      While some good writing, these 5 stories do not cohere into a novel and the stories are very uneven. Feels like an experiment in form that didn't really come off.
    • 4/5
      Not for the faint hearted. This book contains five separate stories, I guess addressing the topic of how people live their lives, and particularly how they face and get beyond hardship. It traces the strange twists and turns that our lives go through, which are nothing like the perfect lives that we grow up believing we might have (or at least some of us do). I must confess that I hadn't realised they were love stories until I saw this title on LibraryThing, as my copy of the book just says 'A Novel in Five Parts', and I still don't think of them that way. I love the quote at the front (notwithstanding sexist language): 'If a man couldn't live a number of other lives, he wouldn't be able to live his own'.
    • 3/5
      A collection of five seemingly separate but somewhat linked stories. All a in different times & places, & have connections based on the fragility of life, it's variability, & the patterns that individuals follow. Combining patterning & quantum physics with a populist touch, & engaging writing style, this should have been more involving than it was. This isn't as good as "Birdsong", "Charlotte Gray" or "Of Human Traces" but it is readable & complete able. Good ,but not his best.
    • 4/5
      Faulks' latest book is sub-titled "A Novel in Five Parts." It is made up of five distinct stories, set in distinct times with distinct characters; all are superbly written and compelling in their own right. What I could not let go of and which caused me to rate the book a bit lower than I otherwise might have was that sub-title. Calling it a novel led me to expect connections among the stories, even small threads that would weave together into something larger, and I spent too much time searching for that and thinking about that to just lose myself in the book. There are, of course, thematic connections - of fate, human connection, and loss - but story collections often have the same kind of over-arching theme. And there were small details that would appear in one story, only to reappear in another. But this is not a novel and calling it that weakened the book for me. A small quibble, perhaps, and the book is definitely worth reading - just try not to get hung up on the categorization!
    • 3/5
      This book has made a very slight impression on me. It consists of 5 different stories, and if they are interconnected in any way it was lost on me. Oh, they all more or less deal with the fragility of human relationships, the awkwardness of trying to get it right, and the apparent randomness of how our lives turn out. The writing is top notch; each of the stories caught me up and propelled me along nicely (even those that I found distasteful or disturbing were so well-written that I didn't feel compelled to set them aside). But the whole is just not a sum here, and less than two weeks after finishing the book I'm struggling to recall details of any of the component parts.
    • 4/5
      This is a book about confinement
    • 4/5
      A novel in five sections where a similar cast of characters have contrasting lives in different historical contexts with different outcomes. Orphans prosper or go under betrayed. Lovers betray or are strongly independent of those who would hinder. Some objects and places are re seen in different stories with other meanings. I was reminded of Cloud Atlas in terms of structure and theme although that was a more ambitious book
    • 3/5
      A Possible Life is described by its author and its publishers as 'a novel in five parts'.

      And they are welcome to describe it as that if it pleases them. But in reality, it's 5 short stories that have been tweaked to give them some hint of a connection.

      The 'theme' of the book, in so far as there is one, is that the life we live is just one of many possible lives, that a combination of luck and conscious decision leads us on a path that is but one of many; but that ultimately, to quote from the final story in the book, "if any of those bits of luck had fallen out a different way and I had had another life, it would in some odd way have been the same - my heart existing by another name." Each of the main characters in the five stories experiences a life-changing event that steers their lives one way, leaving us to ponder what might have been if those events had not happened.

      The links, though, are tenuous, and the stories are perhaps read better five separate stories, where the reader can have fun picking up the references in each story to any or all of the other 4, rather than trying to work out how the book is supposed to work as a 'novel'.

      Individually, the stories are all, in their own way, good; well-written, using a variety of styles, variously moving, amusing, touching. Group discussions show that everyone has their own favourite of the five, and their own view of which worked least well; none of the five is universally adored, nor are any universally disliked.

      The opener, A Different Man, tells the story of Geoffrey, a junior officer in the army inept enough to lose a man on a training mission. Faulks draws on his vast amount of research on military history to describe events in a World War II prisoner of war camp. The writing style is lean, covering much ground in a few pages, while also finding room for some humour. The lost man, Hill from Norfolk, an English county renowned for its flatness, is described as 'quite possibly the last Hill in Norfolk'.

      The Second Sister is written in the first person, from the point of view of a young boy sent to a Victorian workhouse, who pulls himself up from his poor start to become a property developer.

      Everything Can Be Explained, set in the near-future, followers Elena as she becomes a scientist seeking the answer to what makes us human, what synapse in our brains allows us the conscious thought that separates us from are simian relatives.

      A Door Into Heaven describes Jeanne's life as a servant in early 19th Century France.

      The book wraps up with You Next Time, another first-person story, this time of a 1970s musician and his affair with a famous folk singer.

      I found both A Different Man and Everything Can Be Explained enjoyable, well- written, moving, humorous at times. The Second Sister I could take or leave. A Door Into Heaven I did nothing for me. You Next Time I need to read again, in a few weeks. Reading it in the context if trying to find the connections that supposedly form the 'novel' resulted in me feeling frustrated and annoyed halfway though this one. I think it's probably a better story than I can give it credit for at the moment, and I will give it a re-read
    • 5/5
      I LOVED LOVED LOVED this book. It reminded me a little bit of some stories by the Russian writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya in the way they look over a person's whole life or a big chunk of it, imbedding in the arc life details as well as philosophy. Very quickly, Faulks paints such different environments from Victorian England to 70s New York and California. And different voices. I bought it all. What is even more amazing are his characters: they felt like real people to me and their lives felt like real lives - sometimes ordinary, sometimes full of strange events. There is subtle character development, but never hinging on moralizing "growth". I thought these stories were sad and beautiful and full. The writing is economical where it needs to be and magnificently lyrical when the narrative slows down. Often, it plain took my breath away. I wouldn't really call this a novel in five parts, but rather a collection of 5 novellas, just because the parts don't seem to connect in any obvious way (or at least a way that we are used to in novels or linked story collections) except for a certain mood and style. And, of course, there is that little wink of a reference in the end. Perhaps, the main protagonist of this "novel" is not really all the characters, but life itself, hence the title of the book. You just want to say: "isn't it amazing how it happens sometimes…" I am a new Faulks convert and am looking forward to reading his other books. It's great to discover a writer mid-career, who has already published so many books.
    • 4/5
      audio 5 historical times...5 places...5 people.... I enjoyed the individual stories....but I failed to grasp it as an esoteric exploration. existential ....collective consciousness...metaphysical....(descriptions of Faulk's novel) " Occasions of understanding between humans are the one thing that defines us—and that those moments, however fluid, are the one thing that endures." “A Possible Life is an examination of human souls and the impact the decisions we make have on our lives and futures. Had any of these characters chosen a different road, the outcome of their lives may have been forever altered."—Bookreporter.com 4 ★ because I enjoyed the tales, even though I failed to experience a metaphysical revelation.
    • 2/5
      Don' know about the book or what it was trying to achieve , very confusing, details about he concentration camp were interesting and brutal , but otherwise not sure at all.
    • 4/5
      Despite being clearly labeled on its cover as a “novel in five parts,” A Possible Life could just as easily have been called a short story collection or a group of short novellas. Most readers, I suspect, will consider the book to be a collection of interrelated short stories. Each of the book’s five stories, or parts, is titled with the name and time period of its central character, and they are presented in this order: Geoffrey, 1938; Billy, 1859; Elena, 2029; Jeanne, 1822; and Anya, 1971. The first two stories are set in England, the others in Italy, France, and the United States. In each of his tales, Faulks takes his central character from relative youth to old age, describing a lifetime during which seemingly innocuous decisions made by them and others will determine which of their “possible lives” will become reality. Geoffrey Talbot, bored with his life after university, decides to enlist in the British Army, allowing him to cross paths with the French woman who will haunt the rest of his days. Given up by his family because they could not afford to feed all their children, Billy Webb spends his youth in an orphanage/poorhouse where he meets the two little girls with whom he will grow old. Decades after Elena’s father returns from a business trip with an orphan boy he wants to adopt, she finally learns the truth about the love of her life. Jeanne, said to be “the most ignorant person” in her rural French village, makes a difficult choice that will ultimately define who she is. And, finally, Anya, an extremely talented singer-songwriter must make painful decisions if she is to survive the 1970s American music scene.Faulks presents his premise that all human beings are connected, tenuous as those links might be, by referencing the tiniest of details. Sometimes a physical object moves from one story to another, at other times the descendent of an earlier character appears in a later story, or a reference to the future made in one story comes true in a second. The psychological impact of the connections is often increased by the very subtleness of the references.Novel, or not, A Possible Life is definitely memorable. Sebastian Faulks fans should be pleased with it, and readers new to the author’s work will likely want to read his earlier work after reading this one. They might even begin to wonder about their own possible lives – and which one they might end up with.Rated at: 4.0
    • 3/5
      A Possible Life is is described as a "novel in five parts." It is true that there are five distinct stories. The first, set in 1938 is about an English school teacher who goes off to war and returns changed, but is somehow able to make peace with that change and carry on with his life, however lonely it may be. The second is set in 1859 and tells the story of a boy who is sent to the workhouse by his parents. He eventually makes his way out of the workhouse and becomes successful. This was my favorite story of the five. The third is set in 2029 and is not a bad depiction of a possible future. A young woman who struggles to have meaningful relationships with people, including her own parents, finds one person who she loves, but they can't be together. I didn't love the story, but it was still compelling. The fourth story was set in 1822 and was about a woman who spends her entire life caring for someone elses children. It was poignant because in many ways she seemed to be unappreciated, but in the end, she found a connection with the boy of the family who was wounded in war. He took care of her in her old age and her life didn't seem terribly pathetic to me, in the end. The last story was set in 1971 and followed the rise of a musical sensation through the eyes of her lover. I did not enjoy this story at all. The love story was a little nauseating and the main characters seemed to leave all their redeeming qualities behind when they got together.While each story was interesting and compelling in its way (excepting perhaps the last one) they failed to be truly cohesive as a novel. In spite of the faint connections that may be drawn between the stories, I did not find a strong enough thread to create a unifying theme. Even the title question of "How many possible lives?" did not seem to be answered by the stories. Not the author's best work, in my opinion.
    • 3/5
      This was a very mixed collection of five short stories. I greatly enjoyed the first two stories, "Geoffrey, 1938" and "Billy, 1859", but the third one, "Elena, 2029", was rather horrible. "Jeanne, 1822" was okay (although the ending of it was weird), but the last one "Anya, 1971" was an execrable and nauseating "love" story.
    • 3/5
      The subtitle of this newest offering from Sebastian Faulks is "A Novel in Five Parts". There's no question about the five parts; in separate sections Faulks tells the stories of five people who live in various places and eras. There's Geoffrey, a British schoolteacher who experiences the horrors of World War II up close and is never quite the same. There's Billy, who is a little boy in the mid-19th century when he is sent to a workhouse and ever after is on a desperate quest to fill the empty spaces in his heart and his soul. There's Elena, living in the Italy of the near-future, who makes a successful scientific career out of her natural inclination toward solitude, except for the one person she lets into her heart. There's Jeanne, an illiterate and orphaned woman in the early 19th century whose entire adult life is spent caring for someone else's children. And there's Anya, whose extraordinary songwriting and singing talent takes her to the pinnacle of success at the end of the 20th century, even as she leaves some shattered hearts in her wake.If reading that summary leaves you wondering how the five parts tie together into a novel, I can set your mind at ease. They don't. There are fleeting sentences here and there that imply a mystical connection between one or more of the stories, but nothing ever comes of them and the reader is left with five separate, good-tasting dishes that never come together into a satisfying meal. The closest Faulks comes to a unifying theory is in Elena's struggle to quantify scientifically where the human's sense of self comes from. There's a great deal of contemplating that we are all just clusters of cells and organic material and when we die we are again reduced to our most basic elements and eventually reformed again into another self. Perhaps we are meant to think of these five wildly different characters as all made from the same cells as they form and re-form through the ages. But that's just a guess, because Faulks doesn't offer anything in the way of explanation.There's absolutely nothing wrong with the writing of any of the individual pieces, and I found all them fairly engaging on their own merit. But when I turned the last page on Anya's story, the only emotion I felt was, "Huh. I guess that's that, then." And that doesn't seem like the emotions a successful project should evoke.
    • 4/5
      The subtitle, "A Novel In Five Parts", is both misleading and spot on. Misleading because there are five different narratives that make up the book, not obviously related to each other. The times are different, the situations are different, the outcomes are different. It's only after you read them all that you see what the connections are. It has to do with possibilities, and choices, what we dream and what we become, our intentions and our actions. There are a lot of levels to this book, and I found myself pondering the characters' choices and outcomes for quite some time after closing the book. There really is a lot of craft and thought put into each of these stories, and sum of this book is far greater than that of each individual story.
    • 4/5
      This is essentially five short stories presented as a novel. Faulks himself connects the five pieces through the thought that our lives persist in an elemental way though time: as human cells die they don't vanish but persist in the world as matter and energy, so that the smallest part of each of us has been recycled from those who've lived in the past, and will be reborn into still others into the future. So each person portrayed could represent a possible life for each of us, or for each of the other characters.I wasn't so deeply convinced of that myself as I read, perhaps because it's a little conceptual, or perhaps because that thought isn't made explicit until the third story and then again at the end of the fifth. But taking each story as a separate world, I still loved the book.Three of the stories are set in the 1800s and 1900s -- "Geoffrey," "Billy" and "Jeanne" -- and to me those were devastating pieces of historical fiction. A fourth story, "Elena," presents a character living in 2029, and it too was affecting, though its science fiction format was a little unexpected. "Anya" is the longest story, set principally in the 1970s. This one didn't ever fully capture me. It is presented as a portrait of Anya, but it's narrated entirely from the perspective of her feckless lover Jack, whom Anya calls Freddy. Neither character is very fleshed out, undoubtedly on purpose, but the result is that neither character is very affecting, and the story meanders, with very little at stake except the unhappiness of Jack's previous girlfriend. But "Anya" likely will be enjoyed by different readers for its portrayal of the 1970s and the music scene.At its best, I found the book powerful, and at its slightest it was still enjoyable. Not just a good read, this is the kind of book that will stick with you.
    • 5/5
      Possible LivesWhat if our life had turned out differently? So many turns, so many choices, yet we have lived out the life we have, only now and then wondering about other beginnings, other endings. Sebastian Faulks has written a remarkable novel, the first I have read by this successful novelist. It is described as “a novel in five parts” and is a collection of novellas each focused on one individual in a different setting and different time period. The novellas are very loosely linked and part of the pleasure is discovering those links.Geoffrey’s story begins in rural England in 1938 and takes him through his espionage work in WWII France and a horrific imprisonment in a concentration camp. The experience is shattering, yet Faulkes tells us the impact through what Geoffrey’s world and his daily life are like in his declining years, not in the immediate experience.Billy is the middle child of a family sinking into poverty in London in 1859 and it is he that the family selects to send to the workhouse to lighten the burden on the family. Billy narrates his own story and Faulkes beautifully evokes a child’s experience of this commonplace of 19th century London life. Billy survives to build a better life and his tale is heartwarming and bittersweet.Three more lives follow: Elena, a girl growing up in the post-economic collapse of Italy in 2029; Jeanne, a nearly mute housemaid raising two generations of children in early 19th century rural France; Anya, a fragile songwriter and singer in 1971 America whose rise to stardom takes a terrible toll.Faulkes finds a voice for each of these individuals and tells their stories in individual ways. These are lives so different from each other and yet all possess what we all possess, the necessity of finding our own way. I was deeply moved by these stories and found deep affirmation of that resiliency that gets us through each day. Well done Sebastian Faulkes!
    • 4/5
      The human experience is much the same no matter where or when we live. We all want to live a life with purpose and in connection to others. We all experience joy and pain and find similar ways to survive in a world that sometimes lacks meaning. Faulks has chosen to illustrate the collective consciousness of humanity through these five stories of men and women of different times, places, and backgrounds. It is up to the reader to find the tenuous links between the lives of Geoffrey (1938) who was a captured British spy in WWII, Billy (1859) who overcame his Dickensian youth in a London workhouse, Jeanne (1822) who lived a dreary life as a servant in France, and Anya (1971) a talented but insecure singer and songwriter.As with many story collections, the individual stories were disparate and uneven. The book is subtitled: A Novel in Five Parts. It didn't read like a novel to me but I did enjoy looking for the connections between stories. They were as different as the game of cricket is to a plaster Madonna. The common themes of loneliness, love, abandonment, imagination, and the struggles to overcome life's harshness were much more unifying than the brief deja vu moments.I purposely saved the middle story about Elena (2029) to write about because to me it held the key to what Faulks was trying to achieve. Elena was a brilliant child growing up in the Italian countryside who created an intricate fantasy world to minimize her boredom. She grew up to be a neuroscientist and learned that the human brain was made up of everlasting matter. Furthermore, through a freak encounter between a dock worker and an iron bar that penetrated his brain but left him conscious, she discovered that the moment of "self" that makes each human unique is linked to memory. It is these recycled cells and memories that loosely connect the stories of five such different people making lives for themselves.I'm pretty iffy about my scientific conclusions, but I am certain that Faulks is a solid writer whether or not one reads this book as five well-told stories or tries to make a novel out of it. It did not equal Birdsong which is my favorite Faulks novel. It reminded me of a Cloud Atlas wannabe that didn't measure up to the greatness of Mitchell's book.
    • 3/5
      When I read "Geoffrey," the first of the five 'parts' of this 'novel,' I fully expected to be awed yet again by Sebastian Faulks. Sadly, this was not the case. I was awed by one part ("Geoffrey"), impressed by another ("Billy"), liked a third ("Jeanne") well enough, but two others ("Elena" and "Anya"), quite frankly, bored me to tears. Two great, one OK, two downright bad out of five--hence the two-and-a-half star rating."Geoffrey, 1938" is the story of a cricket-loving young man, somewhat of a loner, who falls into a position teaching French at a boys' school. As much out of boredom as a sense duty, he enlists soon after World War II begins. Faulks brilliantly describes the horrors of his war experience; the story haunted me for days. My only criticism would be that the book jacket implies that this is a love story. While there is a woman to whom Geoffrey is attracted who is the impetus of change in his life, this is no Birdsong.In "Billy, 1859" an impoverished family is forced to send one of their sons to the work house, where he befriends two sisters. The story follows Billy's hardscrabble life for the next 20 years or so. It's a story that was fairly common at the time, a story of struggle, poverty, better times, more poverty, illness, and secrets. What makes it work is the narrative voice, which is straightforward and never self-pitying."Elena, 2029." Well, here's where things start to go terribly wrong. Elena is a tomboy with an extensive imagination, a passion for bike-racing, and a gift for science. Her parents worry about her odd habit of spending time in a treehouse hideaway and about the fact that she has no friends. So one day her father brings home Bruno, his newly-adopted son. At first, Elena hates him; then she loves him. He goes away. She becomes a brilliant scientist who helps design a machine that analyzes human emotions in the brain. (A lot of scientific gobbledygook here). I just never connected with either of these characters, and I got incredibly bored with the science stuff, which read like Faulks showing off his research.In "Jeanne, 1822," we meet another impoverished person, an orphan who is taken into a wealthy household as a servant/nanny for nothing more than the cost of her bed and board. It's mostly another slice-of-life piece: Jeanne loves her charges, but Clémence becomes aloof as she ventures into society, and Marcel changes due to his war experiences."Anya, 1971." What can I say? I hated it. To me, it read like the author's middle-aged fantasy: commune-living hippie back-up band member/music producer Jack meets beautiful, mysterious (and, of course, extremely sexy and free-loving) folk rocker girl destined for stardom. Lots of drugs, sex, gin, and rock and roll, plus infidelity and burnout. These stereotypical characters struck me as insipid, self-centered, and foolish from the beginning, and I didn't care what happened to any of them. I felt like I was reading Faulks's indulgence in what he felt he missed out on in his now-fading youth. The inclusion of sappy lyrics that were supposed to be brilliant was equally irritating.So . . . how are these five stories linked to make, as the title claims, "a novel"? The connections are pretty slim. Yes, each of these main characters makes choices that change their lives--but is that a theme? Isn't that what life (not to mention novels) is all about? A few references recur: Cheeseman, one of Geoffrey's students, returns as a lawyer in "Anya"; a lunatic asylum goes through various reincarnations; the artist Egon Schiele gets mentions in two stories. There simply aren't enough interconnections between the five parts to call it a novel.Overall, a big disappointment, salvaged by the first two parts. I hope Faulks gets his game back for his next novel. I've read enough of his good ones that I'll give him another try.
    • 5/5
      First, I have to say that this was a beautifully written book that will delight book clubs. I found at least three of the stories to be profound and still have me thinking about them. Through the five separate stories the characters all come to a peace with themselves and the life they are living. While they are fulfilled in their lives, the stories highlight a less than possible life because of life choices or circumstances beyond their control. However, there is an element of sadness across all three. I think this is common for all of us who have reached middle age and looking back on our choices. This book makes you think about what would have been possible. Overall, an excellent read. Reader received a complimentary copy from Good Reads First Reads.
    • 3/5
      Probably my biggest literary disappointment this year! I expected so much from this novel and at first it seemed as if Faulks had delivered with his customary elegance.The book is broken down into five parts and the first, detailing Geoffrey Talbot's gruesome experiences during the Second World War was reminiscent of Faulks at his best: beautiful writing, enthralling plot and characters so real that one almost felt one knew them. The second part, chronicling the life, loves and exploits of Billy Webb in Victorian London, was a little weaker but still close to majestic.However, when the third part took us to Mantua in the near future (2029) I found myself simply incapable of summoning any interest in the story of Elena and Bruno. I never expected that I would feel that way about a Sebastian Faulks novel - his most recent offering, "A Week in December" is one if my favourite novels of the twenty-first century!